New media out earns old—with a smaller customer base.

Netflix has surpassed HBO in subscriber revenue, according to a status update from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Wednesday. The company is now pulling in $1.146 billion compared to HBO's $1.141 billion, and it boasts 50.05 million subscribers, according to its second-quarter earnings reported in July.

Netflix has long seen HBO as a competitor in terms of audience and, more recently, in produced content. While HBO has slowly started to come down from the ivory cable tower and be more flexible about how it offers its subscriptions, Netflix has been making gains.

Further Reading

Hastings acknowledged that HBO still surpasses Netflix "in profits and Emmy's [sic], but we are making progress." Hastings has said many times before that he considers HBO to be a media company that is well-positioned in the changing distribution landscape, where power is shifting away from cable providers and toward Internet streaming.

Still, Netflix may be looking up to HBO a while longer, at least in terms of business. HBO has 130 million subscribers worldwide, more than double Netflix's user base.

Netflix has also written that it's keeping a close eye on Amazon's Prime Instant Video offerings, which are heavily focused on the US, UK, and German markets.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston